1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process and apparatus for forming images having a “texture in gloss” equivalent to silver halide photographic prints by suppressing scattering of reflected light corresponding to, for example, sharpness of glare or reflection of light source, and to electrophotographic image-receiving sheets for use in the formation of such images, and to the resulting electrophotographic prints.
2. Description of the Related Art
The gloss of a reflective print is generally represented by a specular glossiness (hereinafter may be briefly referred to as “glossiness”) specified, for example, in Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS) Z 8741 and P 8142. Commercially available silver halide photographic prints have a 45° glossiness determined according to JIS Z 8741 of generally about 90. As a possible solution to improve the glossiness of electrophotographic prints to those of silver halide photographic prints, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 08-212168 and 2001-183860 each disclose an electrophotographic image-receiving sheet having a support and a toner image-receiving layer containing a thermoplastic resin on the support.
JP-A No. 2002-23406 proposes the improvement of an electrophotographic image-receiving sheet having a toner image-receiving layer, in which the sheet has a glossiness of a certain level or more and shows suppressed scattering of reflected light, to thereby improve the texture in gloss of the resulting electrophotographic print.
JP-A No. 2002-91048 proposes a belt fixing method for improving the gloss using a printer, in which a smooth surface of a fixing belt is pressed to the surface of a print image in image fixing by heating and pressuring to thereby yield a good gloss of the print.
These conventional means are effective for improving the specular glossiness specified in JIS, a part of which can yield a specular glossiness equivalent to silver halide photographic prints. However, such electrophotographic prints still often give a texture in gloss different from that of silver halide photographic prints even they have a specular glossiness equivalent thereto. For example, they may give unpleased textures such as glare, rough or dry texture.
These conventional technologies cannot provide electrophotographic prints stably having a good, agreeable, and natural texture in gloss equivalent to silver halide photographic prints and having sufficiently satisfactory properties. Further improvements on this point have been demanded.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an electrophotographic process and apparatus for forming images stably having a good, agreeable, and natural texture in gloss equivalent to conventional silver halide photographic prints, to provide an electrophotographic image-receiving sheet for use in the formation of such images, and to provide such an electrophotographic print.